There are many applications running on computing devices, e.g., mobile phones, tablet computers, laptop computers, etc., that can receive push notifications and messages from remote servers in the mobile computing device ecosystem. For instance, the Apple Push Notification Service is a push service. The Apple Push Notification Service forwards notifications from remote servers of applications to the Apple devices through a constantly open Internet Protocol (IP) connection. Such notifications can include badges, sounds or test alerts. Developers of applications can take advantages of the push service by using application programming interface (API) calls provided by Apple, Inc. The size of each notification message is usually restricted to a predetermined size, e.g. 256 bytes. Cloud-to-Device Messaging (C2DM) is a push service that allows remote servers to send messages to mobile applications on computing devices. Remote servers can use this service to notify mobile applications to contact the server and fetch updated data.
These push messaging services can create serious drains on the batteries of the computing devices, particularly for computing devices maintaining wireless network connections (e.g. WiFi or cellular networks). Every time a new message notification is pushed to a computing device, the computing device switches from a low power conservation state to a higher power consuming state for a period of time. Upon entering the higher power consuming state, the computing device remains in that state for at least a fixed time period before it can return to a low power conservation state. The higher the number of times push notifications are received longer the period the computing device remains in the higher power consuming state and the more the consumption of the battery of the computing device will be.
The current ecosystem of mobile computing devices does not consider location proximity of the computing devices for pushing the notifications. A user can have multiple mobile computing devices such as tablets and smartphones. While the user may use the smartphone more frequently or carry it more often, the user may not carry the tablet everywhere. So, the user can be away from the tablet for a longer period of time. However, the current ecosystem typically sends notifications to both the devices regardless of whether the user is near and/or likely to use the tablet. This typically results in consumption of power even when the user is not likely to use the tablet. Accordingly, current notification techniques are inefficient at least in terms of power management.